Local News

Lawmakers' edits make open primaries less appealing

Changes to Blue Book have critics claiming bias

By John Frank

The Denver Post

Posted:
09/06/2016 07:02:31 AM MDT

Colorado lawmakers made substantial edits Thursday to how the state's official voter guide describes two ballot initiatives to open political primaries, tossing nonpartisan language and replacing it with wording that makes them less appealing.

The move — backed by Republican Secretary of State Wayne Williams and Democratic legislative leaders and decried as biased by their critics — came as the Legislative Council reviewed a draft of the Blue Book that will get mailed to voters in early October.

Drafted by nonpartisan staff, with input from organizations that support and oppose the proposals, the book offers a description of the ballot questions, as well as arguments for and against, the nine questions on this November's ballot.

The language describing Initiative 98, which allows unaffiliated voters to participate in state and local political party primaries, and companion Initiative 140, which creates a similarly open presidential primary, came under fire from lawmakers who oppose the proposals. Both would allow the more than 1 million unaffiliated voters in Colorado — the state's largest bloc — to participate in primaries without affiliating with a political party.

Despite the high bar for making changes, Democratic and Republican lawmakers united to strike a line that states open nonpresidential primaries have "the potential to increase voter turnout" while adding a paragraph that suggested the new system would "likely result in about 9 percent of ballots not being counted, could change election winners, and would raise costs for taxpayers."

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The lawmakers expressed concern about the integrity of the process, citing a study in Washington state that showed the potential for people to make mistakes by voting in more than one party primary, which would void the entire ballot.

State Sen. Matt Jones, a Louisville Democrat who proposed the changes, cited the potential for spoiled ballots and declared that he could not support "a ballot system that guarantees that a significant portion will not get to exercise their right to vote."

The council also approved similar language downplaying the need for an open presidential primary and added wording to suggest it may result in "contested elections and litigation."

The supporters of the two initiatives presented research that disputed the factual basis for the amendments — showing a study that a semi-open primary increases turnout compared to Colorado's closed system and offering contradictory numbers about spoiled ballot rates.

"This is exactly the kind of partisan maneuvering by the status quo that is why so many Colorado voters are turning their backs on the major parties," said Curtis Hubbard with Let Colorado Vote, the organization behind the initiatives. "To bend this supposedly fair process to their political advantage at the last-minute is disrespectful and disingenuous to Colorado voters."

Republican state Sen. Ellen Roberts warned against such a substantial rewrite, arguing that it didn't reflect the weeks-long "nonpartisan effort put into it," and cast the lone dissenting vote.

The debate came months after hordes of Democratic and Republican voters demanded changes to the state's presidential caucus system that left many voters on the sidelines and drew scorn from Donald Trump, who called the state's vote "rigged."

The efforts to tweak Blue Book descriptions for other initiatives, including questions about raising the minimum wage, hiking tobacco taxes and creating a universal health care system, failed on party lines.

The only other substantive change deleted a line that argued against Amendment T, which would remove language from the constitution that currently allows slavery. The legislature voted to put the measure on the ballot earlier this year.

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